Just been to New Zealand

We got back from a quick trip from New Zealand yesterday, and I haven’t stopped raving about the country. OMG, New Zealand is absolutely beautiful. It is green and lush and mountainous and beautiful.

I’m not sure if I’ve just grown used to living in a drought stricken country, where the freshest grass is generally a dull yellow, but New Zealand was startlingly green. Even the uninhabited miles and miles of countryside looked like manicured garden lawns. Utterly beautiful.

Because we had limited time, we went only to North Island, and popped into Rotorua, which was recommended to us because it’s become kind of the playground of the North. I would recommend it to anybody. The highlight of our time there was visiting a geothermal reserve called Wai O Tapu, which is located slap bang in the middle of a natural active volcanic area. The reserve had a natural geyser, which erupts every day at 10.15am, spewing water 15m up in the air:

It also had amazing natural hot water pools. Too hot to swim in, and full of sulphur and other chemicals which gave the water incredible colors and tons of steam and bubbles. There was also a mud pool, so hot, mud kept exploding through theses massive ripples and bubbles. Check out the green color of the water in Devil’s Bath.

We also went to natural hot spas, and I spent ages just relaxing in the outdoor rockpools. Wonderful, warm and relaxing.

But natural beauty isn’t all Rotarua has to offer. Nope, there’s also a world of thrill rides out there. Agroventure offers four different thrill rides to anyone from 6 over. Mr 6 and Mr 9 had the time of their lives:

This is Mr 6 and Mr 9 on a ride called the Swoop.

They were put in sack-like covers, hauled 40m into the sky and then dropped. They swung through the air at 130km/hour. The kids loved it and wanted to go again. I nearly fainted watching them.

This here is Mr 6 on a sky dive simulator. Yep, he’s flying through the air. (And yep, it is perfectly safe. Believe it or not.)

There were loads of other fun things to do, including riding down a luge in go-carts – tons of fun – and rolling down hills inside massive rubber balls called Zorbs. Kids liked that. DH and I decided not to try it.

Auckland was also fun, altho we didn’t do much sightseeing there because we were visiting friends.

All in all, it was a fantastic holiday, and I’d recommend it to anyone.

Jess

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This entry was posted on October 10, 2010 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Jess Dee. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Hi – really pleased you enjoyed your visit to our beautiful country. Just a shame that you couldn’t make to the (even more beautiful) South Island. Guess you’ll have to come back again and visit the mainland.

Polly, I’ve heard word that the South Island is more beautiful then North Island, but seriously? I find that hard to believe. North island is exquisite!
Hoping to hire a camper van next time we come to NZ, and drive around South Island. Not sure when that will be tho.

Here in the mainland (South Island) we have wonderful mountains, rainforest, adventure tourism, canyons, fiords, glaciers, hot springs, fantastic rock formations (try Googling Pancake rocks)…. I could go on and on. OK – the city where I live is still getting over the earthquake – but even so, life for most is back to normal, and it is still a great place to visit.